


Matchmaker, Matchmaker

by bendingwind



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, OTP OTP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 10:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, Steve, you're gonna have to get married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matchmaker, Matchmaker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeesuperhero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/gifts).



Maria Hill is tall, but not really tall enough to be imposing. As she towers over the conference room chair Steve is sitting in, however, she seems as if she is.

“--And it looks as if the public has more or less accepted the fact that their national icon is gay, but now the polls are reflecting the common bias that homosexuality equates promiscuity and that makes you untrustworthy. The public wants to see you in a stable relationship.”

Steve frowns up at her. Friendships are tricky enough to handle as a member of the Avengers who also, _still_ , spends a lot of his time playing the country’s dancing monkey. He can’t imagine adding a relationship into the mix, which is why he isn’t _in_ one.

“So, what, you want me to start dating?” he asks, slowly, trying to keep his frustration under control. 

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Hill responds, in the tone of someone handing down a death sentence. “We need you to get married.”

“What,” Steve says. It’s not that he has any particular ideas about the sanctity of marriage or whatever--he saw enough of his parents’ marriage to know better than that--but somehow he has always held on to the idea that marriage was special. He always kind of hoped he’d find the right person someday and settle down. He’d even clung to the idea after he’d finally _met_ the right person, and that person had shown distinctly zero interest in men, and Steve had been shoved headfirst into a brutal reminder that happily ever afters didn’t exist.

He resigned himself to living with the love of his life as his best friend. He figured it was the next best thing to marriage, even if he lay awake too many nights longing to touch and be touched.

“Married,” Hill repeated, snapping Steve out of his self-pity. “Our PR department has it all arranged--a taxi will pick you up at seven thirty tonight to take you to the restaurant where you’re meeting your fiance-to-be. A lucky journalist having dinner with the photographer she’s having an affair with will be there to witness his proposal to you. You’ll say yes, and the taxi will take the two of you back to your apartment. Agent Wilson has been brought in on the project; he’ll debrief you on the rest of the details you need before your date tonight.”

Steve glares at her as fiercely as he can manage, and only in part to hide his instinctive wince at the mention of his best friend helping to arrange his marriage.

“Look, you can’t treat me like, like a _toy_ to be danced around for your political benefit, just because I came out to the public! I just wanted to help, to let people like me know that they weren’t alone. I didn’t want to become another shining example of some set of ideals.”

Hill’s lips quirk p in a smirk. “And you wanted the far right to stop hounding you to step up as their spokesperson, I bet.”

Steve keeps glaring at her. To his surprise, her expression softens a little.

“Look, I promise we didn’t just pick some random agent. I think you’ll--it won’t be so bad. Coulson, at least, wouldn’t let them do that to you.”

“Assistant Director Hill--” Steve begins again, certain that there has to be _something_ he can say to convince her that this is completely unacceptable. She holds up a hand.

“Wait until tonight,” she says, “If you still have a problem with it tomorrow morning, we can discuss the alternatives.”

“I want to discuss the alternatives _now_ ,” Steve snaps.

“ _Tomorrow morning_ , Captain,” Hill repeats. “If you’re not in this debriefing room by oh-eight-hundred, I’ll assume you’re okay with the situation as it stands.”

Her smile, so small and secretive that he nearly misses it, is the only thing that stops Steve from fighting it out right then and there. He hates to admit it, but he’s... kind of curious. He still has every intention of being in this office well before 0800 the following morning, though.

“Take the afternoon off. Go home. Talk to Sam,” Hill says, turning to leave. At the door, she half turns. “Good luck, Steve,” she says, quietly, and then she walks out of the room. Steve sits in his hard conference room chair, very still, for a while. Then he stands and heads home to wait and see what will happen.

* * *

Sam’s a jerk.

Steve’s lived with him for five years, and he _knows_ that Sam is kind of a jerk, but he’s particularly reminded of it as Sam sprawls across the couch, laughing his ass off.

“Man, I knew you were from the forties, but an _arranged marriage?_ That’s, like, _medieval!_ ” Sam gasps out, in between peals of laughter. Steve tries his patented I’m-Captain-America-And-Just-Don’t-Son glare on him, but as usual, it fails utterly to make an impact.

“You’ve been waiting all morning to make that joke, haven’t you?” he asks.

Sam grins up at him. “Carol’s idea, actually, but she’s been ordered to stay out of this mess, so I promised to use it for her.”

“You going to help or not?” Steve asks, thoroughly grumpy now. He wants this to be over, so that he can dismiss the entire scheme in the morning and go back to his pathetic pining without anyone trying to force a public love life on him.

And he’d really rather not be reminded about just how hilarious his friends find this in the process.

“I told Directory Fury that I would, didn’t I?” Besides, who knows what kind of ugly-ass dude you would take pity on and decide to marry without me as your wingman.”

Steve feels his lip twitch in spite of himself.

“My taste in men isn’t that bad,” he says, with a more or less straight face.

“It kinda is,” Sam retorts, stilling grinning. Steve loses his battle with maintaining stoicism, and snickers.

“One poor decision...”

“You weren’t even drunk!” Sam crows, and Steve responds as he usually goes when Sam brings up The Incident; he reaches down and tips the couch up, dumping Sam on the floor.

“Unfair use of super-strength!” Sam shouts, but he pulls himself back up to his feet quickly enough.

“So, taxi will be here at seven-thirty, Carol picked out a tux and it’s in your closet, I’ll see you after? Or not,” Sam says, and wiggles his eyebrows outrageously. 

“You didn’t let them set me up with one of Tony’s rich friends just to try and bring more money to the team, did you?” Steve asks, a little suspicious now. Sam knows him too well not to hear the vulnerability in his voice.

“All you really need is a sugar-daddy, Steve,” Sam says, straight-faced. Steve scowls and punches him carefully in the shoulder.

“I’m going to make lunch. If you’re lying and they did set me up with someone he knows, I’m walking out immediately.”

“But they learned to sex from the best!” Sam calls, as Steve disappears into the kitchen.

Sam vanishes around seven, claiming he has last minute details to deal with. By seven fifteen, Steve has managed to get the tux on the right away despite relatively limited practice. The taxi arrives at precisely seven thirty, and they pull up in front of New York’s brand new premier restaurant, _Bocca Sessuale_ at five til eight.

Inside, the waitress is kind enough to inform him that the other half of his party is already there, and leads him to a semi-secluded table near the back, where a man is seated facing away from their approach. Steve would recognize the back of that head anywhere.

“Sam?” he demands, as he strides in front of the waitress and rounds the table.

Sam looks uncharacteristically sheepish, and Steve sits down, a little harder than he had intended. 

“What--?” he begins again, but Sam interrupts.

“Just, uh, hear me out, okay? We’ve been living together for years, the public knows we’ve been living together. We’re good together, we’re used to each other, and as much as I complain I’m actually really shitty at living alone. Uh, really _bad_ at living alone, this place is probably too classy to swear in.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve watches the waitress beat a hasty retreat without their drink order.

He’s immediately distracted by the way Sam shifts nervously in his seat. “Sam--”

“So, you should marry me. Nobody would question it, nothing would have to change, and here, I got a thing.” Sam reaches into his pocket, and for a moment, Steve’s breath stops. Just as Steve feared, Sam pulls out a ring, and offers him a smile that somehow manages to contain a challenge and sheepishness and maybe almost hopefulness all mixed together.

“So, what do you think? I could go down on one knee, but that nosy journalist SHIELD picked is watching and I don’t want it to be too obviously a rejec--SHIELD didn’t want me to give you much of a choice, but I think that you deserve one.”

Steve stares at him with something like horror. It’s been a misery, sometimes, the last few years, living with Sam but unable to touch. He can’t imagine all that and then the knowledge that they were _married_ but sleeping in separate beds and leadin largely separate lives.

Sam watches him anxiously from across the table.

“That’s not a no,” Sam tries to tease, but it comes out thin and strained.

“No,” Steve manages to choke out.

“Good, because I really don’t want to deal with whatever bullshit paperwork Hill was gonna punish me with if I--”

“I mean, no, I won’t _marry_ you, god, Sam,” Steve interrupts, hoarse.

Sam leans back in his chair and frowns.

“Why not?” he asks. His voice sounds colder than Steve thinks he’s ever heard it before.

There are a thousand reasons why not. Because Steve couldn’t stand that, couldn’t bear a mockery, a façade of something that he wants _so badly_ to be real. Because Steve doesn’t want to be in a fake marriage to _anyone_. Because Sam has a life of his own and everyone in SHIELD knows that he and Carol are going to hook up any day now; because neither of them deserve the scandal when Sam inevitably falls in love with a woman and leaves Steve or, worse, has an affair. Because Steve has known, for a while, that he ought to start cutting himself loose if he’s going to save any scraps of his heart at all, and this is just proof that he’s let it go on entirely too long.

Because Steve is a man out of time, and Sam could do so much better.

“No,” Steve says again, because he doesn’t know what to say to stop this hideous day, to take everything back, to make everything go back to the way it was.

He stands and half-stumbles out of the restaurant. The maitre de must see him, because there’s a taxi already waiting on the curb when he walks through the front doors. He throws himself into the back seat, mumbles the address of the apartment he shares with Sam, and hopes with every fiber of his being that Sam isn’t stupid enough to follow him. 

Steve pays the cab driver and climbs the stairs to their apartment in something of a daze. At the very least, he’s managed to beat Sam home, and he is able to lock himself in his bedroom without impediment. 

By three in the morning, he’s resigned himself to going in to Hill in the morning with no sleep and telling her that he’s sorry, he just can’t do it. He’ll resign from the Avengers if necessary. Surely they can find another dancing monkey to play the part of Captain America--there are plenty of super-powered people running around these days, and even plenty who just so happen to have super strength. He’ll probably have to explain why, and that’s--that’s okay. At least then they’ll understand why, when he has to move out and then maybe decides to do some volunteer work with the west coast team. He’ll look like an idiot, and more than a little pathetic, but Steve has always known how to stand under the pressure of people thinking he’s less than he is.

A key jingles at the door, and the lock clicks quietly. In the quiet of the early hours, Steve can even hear the soft whisper of the door opening, and Sam’s familiar footsteps creeping through the apartment.

They stop in front of his door, and Steve holds his breath.

“Don’t pretend you’re asleep, you snore like an earthquake,” Sam says, and Steve breathes out.

“Can I come in?” Sam asks after a few seconds, when Steve still hasn’t responded.

Steve nods, and then realizes that Sam can’t see him.

“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out in a croak. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he repeats, and the doorknob wiggles and sticks on the lock.

Steve stands, unlocks the door, and then retreats to the safety of his bed as quickly as he can manage.

Sam opens the door, but remains standing in the hall. He looks tired, and tense.

“I’m sorry,” he says, almost a whisper.

Steve nods.

“I--you’re right, it wasn’t fair of me to put you in that position. I knew how hard this was going to be for you, I know... I know you always hoped for something, I don’t know, special. I should have done my job and tried to find you someone you could be happy with.”

Steve has to look away now, because he doesn’t have the words to respond to that. _I did_ and _If it meant anything to you more than a favor to a friend..._

“I just--” Sam exhales sharply, and rubs a hand on his head. “When they came to ask me if I knew of anyone you were involved with, or might be happy with, I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being with anyone other than me. I didn’t--I know that you’ve kind of had a thing with that one agent on and off, and I know you used to have a thing for Barnes, and I should have told them that, suggested that maybe you could be happy with one of them, but I didn’t. I just wanted, I thought maybe I could convince you that I was the best choice, so I--sorry. We’ll start over tomorrow, find someone better.”

Steve stares at him, speechless for an entirely different reason. Without quite meaning to, he shifts, farther down the bed, closer to where Sam stands hunched in the doorway. He hardly dares to hope, but--

“Sam,” he asks, and his voice is still a ridiculous croak, “Why couldn’t you stand the thought of me with anyone else?”

Sam laughs, short and bitter.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, asshole,” he says, and Steve doesn’t know where to look, at the bitter twist of his mouth or the curl of his fists or the tense line of his shoulders. “It took me a long time to realize that you just weren’t into me. You just ignored my idiotic, over-the-top flirting, and I guess I thought you were just oblivious. And then I thought maybe you weren’t into men and were being uncharacteristically charitable and not teasing me mercilessly for my obvious interest, and then there was The Incident and I realized that it wasn’t men, it was me. I stopped, because it wasn’t fair of me to make you uncomfortable, and I didn't’ want to jeopardize our friendship, I don’t know, god, I sound like something out of a fucking romcom.”

Somewhere in that mess of words, Steve must have stood, because he finds himself only a few feet away from Sam. Sam’s eyes are downcast, his mouth still twisted in disgust, his cheeks flushed a very faint dark red.

Steve clears his throat, and Sam looks up, eyes wild.

“Hey,” he says, gently, “I don’t know if you knew this, but we’re both really stupid.”

Sam recoils a little.

“No,” Steve says, more insistently now. “So, I’ve been in love with you for a stupidly long time and obviously I should have done this a while ago.”

He steps forward another couple of steps, frames Sam’s face in his hands before Sam quite has time to duck away, and presses a kiss against Sam’s lips.

Sam makes a noise that Steve could never have even managed to dream, and surges into the kiss, licking at Steve’s lips until he parts them. The kiss is ferocious and hot and when they finally break apart, gasping for air, Steve thinks he’ll never get enough of this.

He presses their foreheads together and for a moment, they just breathe.

“Hey,” he says, “Can I ask you something?”

Sam’s eyes flash up to meet his, questioning, and he takes that as permission.

“Will you marry me?” Steve asks, more than a little sheepish himself this time. Sam stares at him for a long moment, and then a slow smile spreads across his face, and finally he starts snickering.

“ _Ass_ ,” he laughs, pulling back to punch Steve in the shoulder. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do all night?”

Steve laughs himself, and tugs Sam into the room and towards the bed.

* * *

Maria Hill’s alarm goes off at ten on Saturday morning. She stretches, yawns, and queues up the feed to Conference Room Six, just in case.

It’s empty.

She smiles, and Natasha reaches over to tug her back into bed.

“Told you it would work,” she says, smugly, and Maria grins and leans down to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> ... My goal for these was 500 words each. It got a little out of control?


End file.
